


Beyond the Mountains

by Solitarysynonym



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe, Implied/Referenced Incest, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-30
Updated: 2015-05-30
Packaged: 2018-04-02 02:13:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4041817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Solitarysynonym/pseuds/Solitarysynonym
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The kingdoms of Derse and Prospit are very different places, divided by a mountain range and rather prejudiced against each other. When twins are born to the Dersite rulers, they form an agreement with the Prospitians: an exchange of sons and simultaneous marriages to unite the two kingdoms at last. As the children grow, however, it soon becomes plain that they are not content to let the mountains separate them for long.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beyond the Mountains

**Author's Note:**

  * For [digimaniac33](https://archiveofourown.org/users/digimaniac33/gifts).



From time out of mind, the kingdoms of Derse and Prospit had coexisted uncomfortably but peacefully upon the continent of Skaia, thanks in no small part to the nearly impassable mountain range that towered between them, making trade difficult. The seas around the land were rough and treacherous at the best of times.

Derse was a land rich in forests and mines, spread out through many valleys and through rocky terrain. Its citizens were often very fair skinned since they lived their lives in the perpetual twilight of the deep woods or the lantern lit night of the mines. From their forges came valuable weapons and jewelry and from their shops came many fine products crafted of wood. Where they were rich in these natural resources, they were poor in farmland. Though the various villages had built sturdy wooden homes, winter battered them harshly and starvation knocked on many a door. 

Prospit by contrast sprawled out in gently rolling plains of rich soil veined with rivers and dotted with lakes. The crops blossomed in the haze of the summer sun and by autumn the citizens often had more harvest than they knew what to do with. Where they were rich in produce, however, the Prospitians were poor in stone and wood, often forced to build with mud and thatch and the winter storms that came howling across the flat plains laid waste to many a village. 

Against this fairly clear cut case of supply, demand, and mutual benefit was set long habit and custom. The Prospitians whispered that the Dersites needed darkness for their shady dealings and inherent treachery. The few caravans that made it through the passes were regarded with suspicion in the Prospitian towns with many a child forbidden from speaking with the pale Dersites with their jingling metal jewelry and sturdy wooden wagons. Prospitians suspected Dersites of dark magics befitting their shadowy towns. The Dersites believed the Prospitians to be foolish, weak-willed, overly superstitious, and cheap. Where Derse traded in coin and currency, the Prospitians favored barter and mutually beneficial exchange. No self-respecting Dersite would trade a ring for a loaf of bread. The straightforward approach of the sun soaked Prospitians was as foreign to the Dersites as the Dersian subtext and subtlety was to those of Prospit. The Dersites kept their affinity for magic as secret as the Prospitians kept their breeding of massive loyal guard beasts that bonded with their masters.

This mutual suspicion and enmity had thrived for so long that very few citizens ever gave it a second thought, though the royals of both kingdoms often brooded. Peace treaties had been struck but each had crumbled in the face of the casual daily antipathy of the citizenry. What good were more caravans when traders and townsfolk mistrusted each other on sight? To the average townsperson, a royal decree affected their behavior not at all. Adding royal guards to caravans simply increased the antipathy and suspicion on both sides of the mountains. Time continued to pass as both sets of royals corresponded by the postal service whose determination to deliver letters no matter the cost remained the most reliable means of communication. When the Dersite queen wrote to the Prospitians that she was pregnant, together the four of them hatched a plan.

\----------

Rose leaned against the balustrade, soaking in the last few shafts of spring daylight that managed to break through the treetops and reach her on the highest balcony of the castle. By rights she should be inside and attending to her lessons, but the tutor had grown beyond boring and the brief path of sunlight had pulled at her like iron filings toward a magnet. Besides what else was there to learn from nattering tutors? As the crown princess, Rose’s primary responsibility lay in learning how to run the kingdom, a task she had long-since learned came from hands-on experience rather than historical texts. Rose sighed and tapped the tip of a long, thin wand on the elegantly hewn stone. 

A rustle of fabric behind her announced the arrival of her twin. Rose smiled at the last touch of sun, her eyes closed as she basked. Her back was to him so her smile was safely hidden. Familiar arms wrapped around her waist as Dave leaned against her with a sigh, his face pressed against the back of her neck. 

“You know I leave tomorrow, why are you avoiding me?” he asked, hugging her tightly. 

Rose sighed and leaned back against him. She tucked her wands away and tangled her fingers with his. “You are leaving tomorrow and I miss you already,” she replied, watching the sun set behind the high mountains. “Looking at you is a reminder that I will not see you for ages and ages.”

“All the more reason to spend as much time together as we can while we still can,” Dave said, trying to turn her to face him, wanting to memorize her face. 

Rose turned, hopping up to sit on the balustrade and staring back at him, her face its usual expressionless mask though her purple eyes scanned his face with as much intensity as he stared at hers. Fifteen years was not nearly enough time for two as close as they. “If you stub your toe in Prospit, will I still know?” she asked softly. 

“Hopefully not,” he said, trying to lighten the mood. He moved to lean against railing beside her, catching hold of her hand. Dave knew full well how excellent her balance, but he still worried. “I will be training night and day I imagine, in the hideous heat of Prospit’s sunny days. You do not need to suffer that with me.”

“And yet…” Rose trailed off, squeezing his hand. And yet. The arrangement would send her brother to the neighboring kingdom and bring the younger Prospitian prince here, ostensibly to be her consort. Rose understood the need for peace and open trade between the kingdoms. She fully understood the politics behind Dave marrying some far off princess and living across the mountains. Still, the peace of the kingdoms felt like less than nothing when compared with losing her twin. 

Rose stared up at the darkening sky, blinking to clear unshed tears before hopping down and pulling her brother after her. “I made you something… Well I made it for us,” she said hurriedly. Dave did not approve of her dabbling but that hardly mattered now. Distantly she wondered if the younger prince from across the mountains would be more amenable to her favored pursuit. Rose dropped his hand and dug in her jewelry box as Dave shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. “Not a headband I hope Rose? I know it was fun to dress as each other when we were young but if you think we can manage to switch places for this arrangement….”

“No, fool, but I hope that these will let us communicate more quickly than the postmistresses mad dashes to and fro between the kingdoms,” she said, holding out one of the two milky white spheres to him. When he cupped it gingerly in his hands both orbs cleared and he realized he could see her in his. “Attuned to us, brother dear,” Rose explained, her voice echoing faintly from the glassy ball in his hands. “I hope that their range will let us speak as often as we like. Rest assured it should be indestructible to any of the mundane means at your disposal.”

Dave laughed shakily as he carefully tucked the ball into the pouch at his belt. “Never underestimate my ability to destroy your creations,” he teased half-heartedly. When he met her gaze his irises were not the only part of his eyes that were red. His lower lip quivered though he tried to smile. 

Rose sighed and pulled his face to hers, pressing her cheek to his. “When we rule these kingdoms, brother mine, I will raze a path through these mountains and we shall spend all our days together,” she said. He laughed and she knew that he thought she was joking, but that suited her just fine. 

\----------

Dave departed in the morning with much fanfare and an entourage of guards, envoys, and trade goods trailing after him for almost a mile. Rose watched until the last rider was lost to sight and then waited for dark to fall. None of the staff dared to disturb her as tendrils of darkness rippled around her, warping the very air. 

\----------

That night Rose and Dave proved that the orbs she had made worked even in the mountains and Rose attempted to ignore the noise of Dave’s room being cleared out and made ready for the new Prospitian princeling who was meant to be her consort. Rose couldn’t help but sneer at the thought of anyone attempting to replace her twin. She would marry him for the sake of the kingdom, but she doubted she would ever love him.

\----------

Nearly two weeks passed before trumpets warned her of the imminent arrival of the Prospitian convoy. Resigned, Rose dressed for a court appearance and settled into her place on the dais with her mother and father, watching coolly as envoys and heralds skittered to and fro, announcing this and that and providing various treaties and documents for the rulers to sign. Rose kept a sharp eye out for her husband-to-be but managed to miss him entirely. 

John Egbert defied her expectations. 

Her knowledge of him had been limited to: from Prospit, younger brother, and often irresponsible. In her mind she had pictured an immature kid pulling pranks. Nowhere in her imaginings had John been taller than her by easily four inches and with arms big enough around that she doubted she could grip his bicep without using both hands. Her pale eyebrows lifted when the prince approached, offering her a basket of apples and grinning at her. Rose noticed his prominent front teeth and the dimple in his cheek. She found herself smiling back despite the dull ache Dave’s absence had left in her.

A murmured encouragement from her parents brought her to her feet, the basket handed off to a servant to take to her room. “Would you care for a tour of.. of your new home?” Rose asked him politely as she settled her skirts about her. 

A muscled arm extended courteously and she tucked her hand into the crook of it, impressed in spite of herself. Dave had been training with a sword for years but his arm were nowhere near this developed. Rose found herself squeezing the solid forearm curiously. “Well Prospit IS known for its farms,” John said as Rose led him out of the audience chamber. “Even the royal family takes part. After all how can you govern fairly without experience?”

“Extensive study,” Rose said, though she pursed her lips, musing on that concept while she showed him the gallery and the banquet hall. John gaped like a tourist, often running his hands over smooth-planed stone and commenting on the abundance of metal fixtures. She hesitated on the threshold to the wing she had shared with Dave, feeling dizzy at the knowledge that if she pushed open his door, his room would be emptied out. John seemed nice enough but the thought of him in the space that had been Dave’s made her stomach churn. 

“Rose? Rose what’s wrong? You look pale… well paler… Don’t you Dersites go into the sun at all?” John was saying. Rose came back to herself and found she was seated on a thick windowsill with John gently shaking her by the shoulders. She put her hand to her cheek and found it slightly clammy. “Sorry… This… This is where your room is,” Rose said, pointing at the door that had been Dave’s. “I just need a few minutes, feel free to explore. My room is at the end of the hall. Let me know when you’re ready and I’ll show you the grounds.”

Rose closed her eyes as John let her be, not wanting to watch him walk into his new quarters. Didn’t want to see a dark-haired head replace the pale blonde of her memory. She pushed herself stubbornly to her feet and retreated to her room though she left her door open. Her space was as she had left it though John’s gift of fruit rested in the middle of the small table in her entranceway. Rose’s mouth twisted and she strode past it and out onto the balcony. Her small hands gripped the stone railing so hard she wished it would crack under the force of her frustration. She glared out at the mountains, embracing her anger at the unfairness of this separation rather than giving in to her grief. Nightly talks were a drop of healing potion on a gaping wound. How could she bear to go a year, perhaps two before they were face to face again?

A hand touched her shoulder and her rage took the instincts and techniques drilled into her by the master at arms and kicked them into overdrive. Rose tore away from her assailant, taking the offending hand with her and giving it a vicious twist as her hand went to her waist for a knife before it registered that she had just put her betrothed on the ground. John was on one knee and breathing fast with pain, his arm twisted up and straining in her grip. Rose dropped his hand like a hot coal. “I.. You should not sneak up on me like that,” she snapped as her adrenaline ebbed. Rose put her hands to her temples, closing her eyes and trying to focus over the thunder of her heart. She usually had a better grip on her emotions than this. 

“I knocked. And called your name,” John said reasonably, only a slight strain in his voice betraying his discomfort. There was a scuffing sound that Rose assumed meant he had gotten to his feet. She knew she should apologize but what was there to say?

“You miss him,” John said softly. Rose’s eyes flew open and she stiffened to find John so close. He was standing again. Towering more like. He may only have a few inches on her in height but he was broader and thicker and darker. He stood closer to her than anyone but Dave… But John was not her twin and her space felt infringed upon. 

“And you? Do you miss your sister?” she hissed at him, retreating away from his unwanted presence. He seemed friendly enough but him being so near while she missed her brother was salt in her wounds. 

“Of course,” John said, his thick eyebrows coming together. He rubbed the wrist she could easily have broken but kept his distance. “We… We were always together… But the peace is important too.” John turned toward the mountains as well, his shoulders drooping very slightly. 

Rose gritted her teeth, fighting the surge of empathy and pity that threatened to dull her anger. “They say twins are unlucky,” John said into the silence. He sounded almost like he had forgotten she was there, listening. “They never really say who the bad luck is for.” 

She grimaced but turned toward the mountains as well. “We used to wonder if your parents employed some sort of magic to insure that there would be two of you as well. This arrangement is so… tidy,” she said to the growing darkness. The sun had set behind the trees and even the twilight was fading. Rose sighed and let her anger fade. John was as much a victim as she in all this. 

“At least it means none of us are alone,” John said softly, gripping the stone railing and staring out into the night toward the no longer visible mountains. 

Rose hesitated, then set her hand gently atop his. “At least there is that,” she agreed.

\----------

Dave hated horses. He hadn’t two weeks ago but now he was completely certain that horses were evil, traitorous beasts. 

Dave missed Rose terribly and had longed to turn around even before they had ridden out of sight of the castle. What cared he for treaties and trade agreements when he was leaving behind the other half of himself. After talking with his twin when they had set up camp for the night, Dave had curled up in his bedroll and wished for an avalanche or a bear attack, anything to force them back to the castle. Fate had other plans however and in the morning the caravan rode on. 

Two miserable weeks later he was riding over a land so flat he felt exposed with nothing but rolling farmland in all directions. The lack of trees or even sizeable hills made his skin crawl and the constant oppressive sunlight had made him pathetically grateful for the darkened glasses one of the guilds had gifted him with before he left. How could the Prospitians stand to have the vicious orb staring down at them all day? His twin enjoyed basking but Dave and the sun had been nemesii since his first painful sunburn at age 3.

He had taken to practicing with the guards in the evenings to distract himself from thinking about his far-distant twin and to keep his skills sharp. He had been trained from early childhood to fight and knew that he could prove himself worthy of protecting this Prospitian princess. From what he understood the brother he was taking over from had been an indifferent warrior at best and far more interested in academics. Dave was determined to impress his bride-to-be with his heroic chivalry. He would make this Princess Jade safe in her flat kingdom oppressed by the sun. 

Even without the concealment of forests and hills Dave barely realized their destination loomed until they were practically inside. Loomed was not the correct word. Derse’s castle towered up with multiple towers crafted of dark stone. It thrust above the trees and reared up with arrogance and assertiveness in defiance of the forest and the encroaching mountains. The Prospits had built… he couldn’t bring himself to call it a castle. A fortress perhaps? No, it wasn’t defensible, this sprawling collection of impressively mortared and solid looking brick and thatch structures, but nothing rose higher than a second floor apart from a single tall tower in the middle of the disorderly estate which was currently tolling a bell, presumably to announce his arrival. It was the only structure he could see that was made of wood.

Dave squared his shoulders and attempted to kick his mount into a trot and almost got bucked off for his trouble. He and his steed had gotten along fine prior to this long distance trek, but his beast was built for combat and had found this long tedious journey as dull as he but was taking it out on him. Dave found this tremendously unfair as he had been forced to suffer the most tooth-jarring gaits the defiant nag could inflict upon him. His saddle sores had saddle sores and yet… He sat up straighter as they rode into a wider cleared space in between some of the buildings where a large number of servants had gathered, presumably to collect the mounts and the supplies they had brought. 

He dismounted with some relief, frowning as his horse was led away and went as docilely as though it hadn’t attempted to throw him off a few minutes before. Dave straightened his clothing and looked around for someone to direct him toward this princess when a shadow fell across him. 

Dave noticed the green first. 

Green fabric. Green dress. Green eyes. 

His dark tinted glasses might protect him from the sun’s glaring but the sparkle of those bright eyes zinged all the way down to his toes. 

The eyes were in a beautiful face that shone with cheerful good humor, lips parted in a grin showing prominent front teeth that kept their wielder from being inhumanly perfect much to his relief. 

Black hair fluffed out around the face, falling over tanned shoulders and a green dress that was well tailored to her. To all of her. He realized belatedly that this luminous person stood almost six inches taller than him with shoulders that would have done credit to a blacksmith. 

“Dave of Derse I presume?” she asked. 

“Uh,” Dave managed to say, his thoughts well and truly scattered. He would have bet money that her grin couldn’t get any brighter and he would have lost. 

“Jade. I am I mean. Jade is me,” Jade said, dipping an elegant curtsy. Fortunately years of etiquette classes had made his bowed response as automatic as blinking. 

“Dave Strider, of the kingdom of Derse,” he said, brushing a kiss across calloused knuckles. 

“I thought so,” Jade said with satisfaction. “Welcome to your new home.”

He opened his mouth to respond, but a low, hostile growl from behind him had him whirling, his hand going to the hilt of his blade as he put himself between Jade and danger. 

Danger in this came in the form of a massive white dog whose head was on a level with his chest, so furry that he couldn’t see its eyes. He could see its bared teeth however and began to draw his sword. 

“Bec! Down! Be nice, this is Dave!” came the cheerful voice from behind him. The monstrous dog immediately lay on the ground, plumed tail whipping back and forth as it gazed adoringly up at Jade and Dave couldn’t help but do the same. 

“Bec?” he asked. 

“Oh yes, he has been my companion since I was small,” Jade said airily, taking Dave’s arm and steering him toward the largest building. “I can show you around the castle while the rest of your people get settled!” She patted her hip on the other side and the dog was instantly heeling her, ignoring Dave completely. 

“Oh,” Dave said faintly, feeling as though a rug had been pulled out from under him. It was painfully obvious that this glorious lumberjack of a princess had no need of protection and what else did he have to offer?

\----------

Settled in his new room, Dave could hear the muffled sounds of other people breathing through the plaster and brick walls. He missed the thick stone of his old room, but at least there were some benefits to Prospit, like the thick comforter that felt as soft as a kiss. He tucked the blankets in around himself and cupped Rose’s orb in his hands, watching the swirling white mists inside and waiting for her to respond. 

\----------

Rose had fallen asleep waiting to hear from her brother but the sound of Dave calling her name plaintively broke through a puzzling dream of shapes reaching for her out of the darkness of the forest. “Dave?” she mumbled, rubbing her eyes and sitting up.

“There you are sleepyhead,” he said in relief. “Sorry it took me so long to get on. I thought farmers went to bed with the sun but apparently when they have abundant flickery tallow candles they can keep doing things well into the evening.”

“Mmf,” Rose said, pushing her untidy hair out of her face. The fireplace had burned down to embers but enough moonlight came in through the narrow glass windows to illuminate. Dave was barely visible but his voice was enough for now. “What do you think of your princess?” 

“She’s… Well… The Prospitians are not at all like I thought,” Dave said at last. “They look at me like I’m some strange animal and I stick out like a sore thumb amid all these dark skinned, dark haired, calloused and muscled types.” 

Rose smiled, imaging Dave in a room of people who looked like John. “Mine is much the same,” she said thoughtfully. “Though he seems oblivious to the looks he attracts. ...I did not expect him to be taller than me.”

Even in the dimness Rose could see the flash of Dave’s teeth. “Me neither,” he said resignedly. “Her DOG’S practically bigger than me, this huge monster named Becquerel that looks likely to tear an arm off of anyone who looks at her the wrong way. It keeps growling at me.”

“So you are just as unappealing to animals on the other side of the mountains,” Rose said crisply. “Have any of THEIR birds attacked you yet?”

“Aww Rose why do you have to jinx it like that?” he complained.

“When I jinx you,” she said wryly. “You will know it. At least the orbs are still working fine despite our separation… Zazzerpan finally noticed the supplies I had carried off and has hidden the rarer ingredients better.” Rose grimaced. “Be careful with yours. I am not certain I could make a replacement if one of these is shattered.”

“So old Zaz finally caught on to your game?” Dave teased. “I told you you should just come out and tell him you have more magic and are stronger than him. Our people would be so pleased to have a proper sorceress on the throne.”

“I do not trust anyone but you with the knowledge of the full extent of my abilities,” Rose hissed, eyes narrowing, but Dave’s familiar snort settled down her ruffled temper. 

“As always your secret is safe with me,” Dave reassured her. “...I miss you… Everything is so strange here… I can barely look around when we go outside it is so bright and flat and empty… Even the royals live on the ground floor of these spread out thatched buildings but mostly they are just for storing crops and valuable livestock. I wonder how your Prospitian is getting along in my old rooms. His old ones are smaller with low ceilings and not very soundproof walls. I had to wait until all I could hear was snoring to contact you. I… I will send you a blanket from here. The furs the trappers bring in are lovely but no one in Derse puts out thread this fine. ...Nothing here is stone Rose. Everything is plants or was plants. It feels like the very walls are alive. It gives me the crawls.”

Rose gripped the crystal harder, wishing she could touch him, could comfort him. It broke her heart to hear the loneliness in his voice. “Be certain that I will send you more furs to sleep in with the next shipment,” Rose said softly, holding the crystal closer to her face and peering through it to catch even glimpses of his face. “And darker lenses for your glasses to protect you from the brightness. What else can I send you to remind you of home?”

Dave sat in silence for a long time, gazing at her familiar face while his stomach churned. They had known it would be hard to be apart but this… this was worse than he could have imagined. “You,” he said at last. 

Rose closed her eyes and Dave felt a stab of regret at the way the corners of her mouth deepened. Her jaw worked and he knew she chewed on her tongue. “I will find a way for us,” she said. “They will not keep us apart forever.” 

Her eyes seemed to shine in the darkness for a moment but she blinked and he thought he must have imagined it. They blew each other a sad kiss from across a continent and the orbs went dark and misty. Each lay down in their beds feeling a little colder than they had before. 

\----------

John wandered through the castle. How strange that so many rooms were contained within a single set of walls. The stone chilled his bare feet but he was adapting. John refused to completely give up who he was no matter how much these dark stone hallways urged him conform. The Dersites were, as a whole, fair skinned enough to be called pale, with limp fair hair. They looked like plants starved for sunlight with their slender builds. When Rose rested a hand in the crook of an arm he was careful in his motions, half-fearful that he would crush her doll-like fingers if he moved hastily. 

He knew how absurd this was. That first evening she could easily have broken his arm and he never made the mistake of standing within arm’s reach when he disturbed one of her frequent reveries. Months had passed and Rose remained an enigma. 

For the rest, John was adapting. He still wore the bright colors he favored and had noticed the court beginning to do the same. Rose had incorporated more Prospitian fabrics into her garb as well and often smiled when she looked at him. They often spent evenings together on her balcony, talking about the differences between their kingdoms. Oftentimes she focused on teaching him the subtle ways of Derse and attempted to mold him into being as secretive as she. John consented to wear more jewelry and wear shoes in company but in private during his nightly explorations he went barefoot and imagined the soft earth of Prospit rather than the sandy, rocky soil of Derse. 

One thing about this strange land he did favor were the heights. Nowhere in Prospit could he have climbed as high as even the lowest of the palace’s balconies. No towers, no trees reaching for the sky. John had cajoled Rose into introducing him to foresters who took him up to their platforms in the canopies to survey the wildlife and spread of the seasons and John could not get enough of the wind in his face and the way the trees whipped back and forth. It was better than riding a horse. 

Rose’s aloofness at least was beginning to fade. Beyond formally tucking her hand into the crook of his arm when they walked together, she often touched his shoulder or hand while they talked. He found he craved contact more and more the longer he was away from Prospit. Dersites were much more alarmed by touch and he had learned to keep his distance. When he found himself wanting to cling too much to Rose, he went out for a walk on the balconies or explored more of the castle. 

The castle seemed to shift around at times and he frequently got lost. Not even Rose would explain what kept doors with no visible locks or latches completely impassable. She got very evasive when he pressed and finally he had given up rather than alienate his closest friend in this place. Sooner or later someone would have to explain things if he was ever going to be an effective ruler. For now he could play the Prospitian bumpkin and let them talk down to him a bit. John didn’t mind being seen as a little goofy. It meant people talked to him. Already he was on better terms with most of the servants and soldiers than was Rose. He was also on better terms with her than anyone else, though rumor and whispers confirmed that though she seemed to like him well enough, their relationship wasn’t even a tithe on her bond with her twin. 

Given John’s relationship to his own twin, he could hardly be jealous of that. John paused, inhaling and exhaling through his nose. Thinking about Jade had been a mistake. His chest hurt and he slowly sat down on the steps, wishing that the couriers were faster carrying messages fast enough. He wished the passes were not so harsh and so long. He wished that he was home with Jade never far away or that when he went back to his room, Jade’s room was the one next door. He missed her more than he missed constant sunshine and open spaces. 

\----------

“Dave you need to put on the sun balm BEFORE you go out in the sun,” Jade lectured grumpily as a healer daubed ointment on the tomato red skin of a thoroughly miserable princeling. “You would THINK after six months here you would be accustomed to how completely you need to cover up when going outside.” Jade secretly felt gleefully that she was dragging Dave into the daylight, despite his protests and resistance. She was winning him over slowly but surely as his freckles increased and he adapted to being a creature of the morning rather than of the night. 

“But the sun was not even out!” he protested, wincing as the healer smoothed cream over a particularly ugly looking patch of sunburned skin. “The sky was all clouds and no one else was even wearing a hat!”

“THEY have lived here their entire lives,” Jade snapped. Even breathing looked painful with his skin so raw and her fear that he would be worse hurt if he did not learn made her harsh. “THEY recognize the symptoms of sunstroke and heat exhaustion and do not insist upon carrying heavy swords on simple treks. THEY know that even with cloudy skies the sun can still inflict bad damage!!” 

Dave drooped, swaying slightly with lingering heatstroke. 

Jade sighed and tucked him in herself when he finally lay down. “At least the courier arrived while you were out,” she said, trying to cheer him up as the healer packed up and left. 

“Oh good,” he said vaguely, not bothering to sit up or ask if there was anything for him. 

Jade frowned. She had noticed his lack of interest before but especially under these circumstances it was more than suspicious. “I suppose I should just leave your letter from your twin on your table for later?” she asked carefully. 

“Sounds fine. I can give it a look when I’m up and about tomorrow,” Dave said, lying in the bed that had been John’s and closing his eyes. 

“Mmm,” Jade said, setting the roll down. That was another thing: her correspondence with John was regularly at least three times as long as anything Dave and and his twin had written so far, yet when she spoke to him of how much she missed her brother, his feelings for his sister mirrored her own. Mysteries within mysteries. Jade watched him for long moments before exiting and carefully closing the door, Bec obediently at her heels as always. Jade knew she was missing something and resolved to ask John if he had noticed anything similar about Dave’s sister. 

\----------

Before any of them knew it, a year had passed since John and Dave had made the journey to their new homes. They lived in a flurry of lessons and exploration and introducing the newest royals to their future subjects and new lands. John lost the edge of his tan, though he was still many shades darker than the darkest of the Dersites. Dave discovered to his horror that he had come out in freckles after all of his sunburns and took to wearing long sleeves even as the weather turned warmer. Rose commented occasionally that John was becoming positively crepuscular. She declared that them meeting in the evening was a fine compromise between his afternoon cheerfulness and her nighttime affectations. 

Over supper one night, John casually inquired when he would be journeying back to Prospit to visit and help with the harvest that Jade had written was abundant and flourishing. 

Silence fell over the adults and John and Rose came to high alert as Rose’s parents exchanged unhappy looks. 

“I thought you understood that with the harvest so good and logging season in full sway there really is not time or the soldiers to spare to send you to Prospit or bring Dave to Derse just for a visit…”

John was already out of the doors, his breathing coming in ragged gasps. It hadn’t occurred to him that he wouldn’t be going back to visit Jade. He paused in the entrance hall, unsure where he wanted to go but knowing that he wanted to be alone. 

“John!” Rose called, the patter of her delicate slippers following behind him. John fled before she could catch up with him, bursting out the front doors and heading for the nearest tree. Rose was excellent at many many things, but climbing in the proper and fashionable skirts she favored was impossible and it would give him a few minutes to compose himself. 

Rose rushed after him but stood gaping as he swarmed up the tree. She had never even seen the experienced foresters scale a tree so fast. She had rarely seen SQUIRRELS climb a tree so fast. He seemed barely to reach for handholds before he vanished into the branches. Rose fingered the handles of her wands, considering, then sighed and took a seat on a nearby boulder, waiting for him to come down. As she sat, she brooded, her shoulders hunched. It had occurred to her and Dave earlier but they had preferred not to ask and to let their hopes linger. 

At least another year before she would see her twin face to face… Rose found it hard to breathe, gripping her wands for comfort and reassurance that there might be another way… in time… Being out in the forest with night falling reminded her of the dream that she kept having and she glanced over her shoulder at the darkness, wondering if tendrils would snake out and seize her. Perhaps this was all a bad dream. 

From overhead came a loud cracking sound and a yelp of surprise followed by a drawn out yell. A massive branch smashed into the ground and a brightly colored figure plummeted after. Rose reacted instinctively with the wands in her hands, but even so barely managed to slow his descent before he hit the ground. She ran forward, praying under her breath that it had been enough. 

“John! John!” she shouted when he didn’t move, gently running her hands over him. One of his feet pointed the wrong way but she could find no other serious injuries. Her resolve to keep her magic secret until John was more comfortable here was long forgotten as she summoned a spirit to bring a healer and guards and a stretcher from the castle. Gently she eased his head into her lap. 

John groaned as the torches approached, grimacing and peering up at her. “...Rose? ...What happened?”

“You fell, but you are going to be fine,” she promised him, smoothing his hair out of his eyes. “You broke your leg but mercifully the rest of you seems to have survived intact.”

John lifted a hand and brushed her cheek, looking surprised. “Rose, are you crying?” he asked and she stared down at the drop on his finger in surprise. She sat, watching mutely as the guards carefully transferred him to a stretcher and rushed him to the castle, another group waited to escort her back. Rose wiped her cheek, finding it dry, and rose at last, heading back to the castle in a daze. 

\----------

John slept peacefully in the infirmary, his leg straightened and bound with the strongest spells available. She had been assured several times that the prince would be right as rain in a few weeks and had retreated to her room at last. She stared into her orb, waiting in shaken silence for Dave to respond. 

As usual, he waited until after dark, responding in a quiet voice. 

“You need to go get Jade right now,” Rose snapped. 

“What? But..” Dave said, eyes wide and confused. 

“John fell and broke his leg and she needs to know that as soon as we can tell her. She deserves to know,” Rose said grimly. 

“...Jade will know then that you use magic Rose. We still do not know how she will react… If I was not so obviously magicless…” Dave trailed off, grimacing. The suspicions and prejudices ran deep. 

“If it lets her speak with her brother, I doubt she will care,” Rose said grimly. 

\----------

“...What?!” Jade almost shrieked. 

Dave winced, trying to hand her the orb again. “He fell or something. Please just let Rose explain. She would not tell me anything except that I had to show you this,” he said, curling his fingers protectively around the round crystal. If Jade gave in to her distaste for magic and smashed it, he would lose his best link to the person he cared for the most in the world. 

Jade’s green eyes narrowed as she eyed the innocuous sphere as though it were a poisonous snake. Her lips pursed and then that sunny smile flitted across her face. “No wonder you were uninterested in letters…” she said at last, holding out her hands. “I will be very careful with it, I swear,” Jade promised, her expression grimly determined. “I need to know that my brother is safe.”

Dave placed it gingerly in her hands and Jade and Rose looked at each other for the first time. “Is he going to be ok?” Jade asked without preamble, ignoring the strange feeling in the pit of her stomach. John came first. John always came first. 

“He will,” Rose said. “The news that neither of our parents had seen the necessity of arranging for any of us to travel over the summer hit him hard and he tried to find a secluded spot. Unfortunately he chose a tree and the branch he had put his weight on broke. I managed to slow his fall slightly and he came away relatively unscathed apart from a broken leg which the strongest of our healers assures me will be good as new within a few months, so I suppose that travel would be out of the question regardless.” Rose’s tone remained matter of fact, but Dave could hear the sorrow between her words. 

Jade swiped a hand across her eyes and smiled in a watery way. “Thank you,” she said hoarsely. “Thank you for saving my brother. And for sharing this.. thing with me so that I would know immediately.”

Rose nodded at the same time as Dave. “I would have done the same for my brother, and I imagine you feel the same,” Rose said softly. She sighed. “Tomorrow I will tell John about these and you two can speak. I hope you understand why… Why we did not want to tell you about these…”

Jade laughed a little. “I.. I do. But thank you for trusting me when it became an emergency.”

\----------

With explaining about the communication sphere came discussions about magic in general. John seemed honestly relieved to finally understand why he could not get through some doors of the castle. 

Dave found himself besieged with questions by the ever inquisitive Jade, finally just handing her his crystal so she could question Rose directly. Some nights he could barely get a word in edgewise as the pair of them argued about theory and whether or not Jade could learn magic at all. Dave grew fonder of the mail as he began to receive long letters from John, always starting off as complaints about how Rose monopolized his face to face time with his sister, but soon branching out into discussions of the countryside and the various attractions therein. Soon Dave was organizing trips out to the various historical sites John had suggested and John took escorted hikes to the most breathtaking vistas of Derse. As time passed the letters grew longer and more and more often the pairs would be found in the morning curled up in the same bed, having fallen asleep talking to their counterparts across the mountains. 

\----------

All through the winter they worked on the adults, cajoling and begging and threatening until they had hard won promises that a trip would be organized. Besides, the passes through the mountains needed improvements in any case as the impending marriages and exchanging of sons had strengthened ties and encouraged trade. Banditry had also increased and both royal families determined that they would establish guard posts along the major routes and keep a better roadway cleared. 

As soon as the spring thaw finished, a massive group of surveyors, clerks, mapmakers, guards, and merchants with trade goods departed Prospit, led and hurried along by Dave and Jade. Despite strict orders they often rode in advance of the lead party, guarded only by Bec and their own skills, too eager to be reunited with their twins to await anything so paltry as protocol. 

\----------

A delighted yelp split the morning air just after dawn in the third week of travel. The slow-moving mass finally approached the valley floor and the better-maintained road that eventually joined the Moon road to the castle. The guards scrambled to alertness, looking around for the danger when Jade and Dave burst out of Jade’s tent (an event that no longer attracted raised eyebrows from even the most conservative members of court) and sprinted off down the mountain with Bec hard on their heels. “Your royal highnesses!!” the captain of the guard called in vain, cursing as he ordered his mount saddled with all haste. 

The guards who were dressed enough to ride thundered after the royals and were forced to rein up sharply when they came around a curve and found two horses standing and browsing on roadside weeds as the wayward royals embraced their respective twins, all quiet murmurs and occasional tears as they reunited after two long years apart. The guard retreated out of earshot, sending most of their number back to begin the process of moving the long train of wagons and bureaucrats along toward their destination. The four young nobles finally consented to clamber into the back of a wagon to continue their talking, unwilling even to accept the separation of mounting their horses. 

\----------

A week passed before they ventured out of their wing of the palace. Dave had shown John the hidden door Rose had enchanted between their rooms and Rose finally consented to allow John and Jade into her workshop, showing them her grimoires and attempting to teach Jade some basic spells. 

Together they toured Derse, showing Jade their favorite sites and places and teaching her about the place she had only heard of. 

At first Rose thought Dave’s new freckles looked ridiculous, as did the few pale strands he had managed to grow on his face. The first morning she zapped them off of his chin to wake him and smiled sweetly at him as he sulked. The freckles she came around to in the end, delighting in tracing constellations on the familiar face. Dave changed his very dark shades to lightly tinted ones, but after two years of wearing them continuously he felt exposed without something. As soon as anyone outside of their little circle came into sight he crammed his tinted glasses onto his face. Rose missed him being a closer reflection of her but he was far too dear to reject over something so small as a few freckles and far brighter-colored garb.

John delighted in holding his arm against Jade’s and comparing how his skin had lightened by being in perpetual shade. He joked that he would probably roast like Dave as soon as he set foot in Prospit now. It amused him that Jade’s brightly dyed clothes seemed far too colorful to him now. By far his favorite discovery was that he and Dave had arrived at about the same level of bright and dark clothing from opposite directions. He took every opportunity to clap Dave on the shoulder and laugh about this. 

Dave barely let go of Rose’s hand, drinking in her calm and her quiet composure. John he welcomed like a brother, finding to his surprise that the long letters and brief talks via the spheres had accustomed him to the other’s presence and that he could relax as comfortably with all three of them as he could with either of the girls. Rose sometimes complained that it was hard to teach Jade simple spells with only one hand but she never pulled away. 

Jade lapsed frequently into thoughtful silence as the weeks passed. Her twin looked hale and hardy (if paler than before) and Rose was the same in person as she had seemed via the spheres, apart from how vehemently she gestured while talking. Jade argued back just as vociferously, grinning delightedly to find someone who enjoyed a spirited debate. John had a tendency to laugh and slide away from attempts to argue about something where Dave would get nervous and start to babble on and make her feel bad for confronting him. In Rose, Jade found a mind as sharp as hers and as willing to fight and Jade couldn’t help but imagine the kind of kingdom they could make together with Rose’s vision and Jade’s practicality. 

Summer reigned supreme when at last the legion of bureaucrats prepared to depart. Masons and laborers had been contracted and the widening of the passes was well underway. Already the main pass had reopened and was ready for testing meaning that Jade and Dave had to depart at last. 

Jade shed a few tears as she hugged Rose fiercely and then clung to John. He hugged her back as tightly and rubbed her back gently, murmuring reassurances. Dave and John had exchanged a manly forearm clasp before Jade had struck and Dave found himself facing Rose. Her face could have been a mask but even two years could not dull his skill at reading her eyes. “Until next summer,” he said softly, taking her hands in his. “Until then you have John to torment and a kingdom to learn to run. Plus you have to organize your half of the pass so that your ride to Prospit next year is as short and easy as can be.” 

“You are rambling,” Rose said at last, pulling him closer by their joined hands and leaning her forehead against his. Despite the passage of time they were still of a height, still far better reflections of each other than the towering Jade and blubbering John who clung to each other like the survivors of a shipwreck. Rose sighed and leaned in to press her cheek to his, her grip strong enough to crush his fingers if he hadn’t been holding her back just as hard. They were both breathing a little shakily when they finally parted, their fingertips the final things to brush against each other. Their Prospit counterparts came apart damply and Dave took Jade’s hand to lead her to their horses, glancing back at Rose frequently. She waved a little, her other hand patting John’s back as he wept unashamedly on her shoulder. Sometimes Rose wished she were as honest in her emotions as the Prospits. Tears would have been a relief from the dry feeling of desolation in her chest. She and John watched until the riders were out of sight at last and reluctantly turned back to the castle. Another year before they could be together again for a few weeks. It was unacceptable.

\----------

“What did you say?” Rose asked. 

John stood anxiously just behind her, looking up at the dais and trying not to be amazed that the elegant tiles in front of Rose didn’t freeze over with the frost in her voice. 

The king and queen of Derse on their elegant dark thrones gazed down at their daughter with displeasure. Zazzerpan took a step forward from his standard place off to one side where the rest of the advisors stood ready to advise. The old bearded wizard frowned at his pupil. 

Rose’s mother lifted a meticulously curved eyebrow. “We said, quite clearly, that there is simply too much danger in the passes to allow such public figures as you and the prince to travel this summer,” she repeated, sounding rather bored. “The road improvements are not yet completed and transit is slow and bogged down with merchants as they rush back and forth,” the queen said in a lecturing tone. “The pass guards report a sharp spike in bandit activity and they frequently raid the richest caravans. There have been too many casualties to risk the still-fragile peace with Prospit to satisfy your whims. Write your brother a letter instead and we will revisit this topic again next summer.”

“Rose…” John said softly, reaching for her hand. “We will see them next summer but they are right and we can not put ourselves in danger… Dave would not want you to be in danger.”

“The ones in danger,” Rose said softly, pulling away from him with gentle firmness. “are the bandits who would cross me.” 

Rose stepped forward, away from John. He grimaced as the king and queen stiffened, radiating disapproval. Zazzerpan moved toward them, watching Rose. 

“You say we cannot travel because we would be unsafe,” Rose declared, her chin lifting as she drew the black striped wands from her sleeve, pointing them at the floor for now. Zazzerpan stiffened and moved between the two thrones.

“Rose,” the king said sternly. 

“That is my name,” she said. “And these are my thorns!” Rose raised them above her head, a crackling dark energy arcing between them and shooting down into the tiles at her feet which began to quiver. “I am more than capable of protecting myself from mere bandits. As that is your only reason for denying me my freedom to travel as I please, I demand that you revisit the topic.” The tiles began to pulse with a deep purple light. 

“Enough!” Zazzerpan cried, lifting both his hands and making arcane gestures with his fingers. “Willful child, you have been dabbling in knowledge beyond your grasp. I told you those books were forbidden until you are more in control of yourself and look how you have proven me right!”

Rose struggled to move her arms, the glow of her magic extinguished. John’s magical sense might be entirely lacking but it didn’t take a wizard to see that there was some powerful spellwork coursing invisibly through the air between the two.

“Zazzerpan what do you think you are doing?” the queen demanded, getting to her feet in alarm at the sight of her struggling daughter. “Rose would never put us in danger!”

“Rose has been reading books beyond her understanding and stealing my hidden supplies,” Zazzerpan managed to say. His lined face had gone red with the struggle of containing her. Rose had managed to lower her arms slightly and was staring daggers at her tutor. “She has equipped herself with forbidden dark magics and that puts us ALL in danger.”

John tried to approach her but an invisible force kept him back. “Not yet prince,” Zazzerpan wheezed. Rose shook, her knuckles white with strain but at last Zazzerpan triumphed. Her wands flew out of her hands and into his. He immediately stuffed them into a bag and stood panting and glowering. Without his spell wrapped around her, Rose wobbled. John wrapped an arm around her and felt the way she shook. Her skin was clammy against his. 

“Is this true daughter?” the king asked, waving the queen to be seated and dismissing Zazzerpan to his place beside the dais. 

“I have been studying independently,” Rose said haughtily, though it was only John’s arm keeping her upright. “Zazzerpan refused to teach me the more advanced skills that were the natural next step in my tutelage because he fears that I will grow more powerful than he and that he will lose his position.”

“Untrue your majesties!” Zazzerpan protested. “The princess never asked me for my permission! At least now I understand where my hidden supplies have been going.” The wizard had dropped into one of the provided chairs and was running his hands over the bag in which her wands lay. “She has made something dark and powerful beyond what my books could have taught her even had I allowed her to see them… I fear your daughter is at risk of greater corruption.” 

John scowled at the bitter, jealous look Zazzerpan directed at Rose. He wrapped his arm more tightly around her waist, though already she was bearing most of her own weight, recovering quickly from the confrontation. 

“Rose? What have you to say in your defense,” the king asked. 

“Zazzerpan fears my strength,” she said, glaring at the wizard. “He denies my gifts, steals the creations of my own design, and I demand to have them returned to me. I demand to be recognized and given access to the power that is my birthright.”

The king sighed regretfully. “You are too young to remember the last wizard to dabble in forces beyond his control,” the king said. “For now, I will abide by Zazzerpan’s judgement. You are to practice no magic until he deems you responsible enough to be given access to your workshop and further learning. Use this time to reflect upon your ways, daughter. Your birthright is to rule Derse and Derse needs a strong leader, but not one in the thrall of dark powers. Do not give in to darkness. Return to your room until further notice.”

Zazzerpan’s palpable glee followed them out as John escorted Rose from the audience chamber and back to her room. Already the door into her workshop had sealed itself. Rose gritted her teeth in fury. “If I had my wands back I could break through that in a second,” she snapped. 

“I know,” John soothed, resting his hands on her clenched fists until she slowly relaxed. John turned her hands palm up, rubbing his thumbs over the deep marks she had left in her palms. 

Rose looked up at him, her eyes bright with unshed tears and the corners of her mouth turned down. WIthout warning she threw her arms around him and buried her face in his shirt, her shoulders shaking. “I just… Another year John… another year of waiting… Why will they not accept that I could make us safe? I would never risk our lives on a chance…. But another year….”

Rose trembled and he pulled her into his lap, wrapping his arms around her. “I know…” he said softly. 

She shook her head violently and pushed back a little, staring into his eyes. He realized he had miscalculated: her shaking was not from sorrow, but from rage. 

“They will not stop us next year,” she said. 

“No,” John agreed, his mouth a grim line. “They will not.”

\----------

John looked up from the trade accounts he was reviewing when Rose opened his door, admitting a draft from the chilly hallway. Winter dominated the landscape and anyone who valued their toes kept their windows well sealed and their fireplaces roaring. Rose slammed the door behind her and dropped moodily into the chair nearest the fire. 

John sighed and carefully marked his place before getting up. He stretched toward the ceiling to give her a chance to warm up before he walked over to sit on the arm of the chair. Rose draped her arms over his legs and let her face fall into his thigh. John stroked her blonde hair soothingly. Her hair seemed paler than a few weeks before but she claimed that the long winter and the weariness were bleaching the color out of her. “How did it go?” he asked cautiously, though her slump against him was tale enough and he did not wish to pry.

“Cowards the lot of them,” she mumbled into his leg, then sighed and sat up. John moved off the arm of the chair and settled on the thick purple rug that Jade had sent with the last shipment before winter storms had closed off the passes. The enclosed note had informed them that the rug was the handiwork of one Dave Strider, who had denied any knowledge of said rug in every subsequent conversation, but also practically glowed with pride when they praised its thickness and sturdiness. 

Rose picked up the white orb from its stand on the mantel and settled at his side, leaning her head on his shoulder and staring into the dancing flames. “That dratted old wizard still refuses to return the Thorns of Oglogoth,” she affirmed. “He ‘fears their dark influence will lead me further down the path to corruption’ and will only let me use these flimsy things.” Rose pulled two slim white sticks out of a pocket and dropped them on the rug with disgust. “I can barely light a candle with them, let alone do anything worthwhile and they continue to forbid me to leave the castle grounds. At least both my parents and yours have agreed that, as soon as the passes open, Jade and Dave can ride to us at least.”

John nodded. The contract had been signed in the fall since Rose remained under house arrest and seemed unlikely to ever be allowed to venture forth again. In the months since Zazzerpan had confiscated her most powerful wands, Rose had grown grimmer and more reticent, often snapping at servants and sometimes being short even with John. Still, they had their nightly talks with Dave and Jade to keep them all from despair. 

\----------

Dave hurried into the castle, barring the door behind him before beginning to try and kick the snow off of his boots. He had meant to do a quick circuit of the castle buildings but a quick stop in to check on the horses had turned into an animated discussion of feed types with the head groom and now he was running late for the evening communication with the two in Derse. 

Jade, seated on his bed, looked up when he entered his room, but immediately looked back down at the orb in her lap. “Dave’s here,” she announced to their twins. “And he reeks of horses.”

“If you did not have a better nose than Bec it would not bother you as much,” he complained, hanging up his cloak. Despite his claims he ducked into his closet briefly to change into fresher clothes and scrub up in the frigid water. Though the Prospitian brick houses had improved with the addition of fresh timber to increase their stability and the sturdiness of their roofs, the winter cold had a way of seeping in and braziers were not nearly as effective as large fireplaces. 

Dave retreated to the bed with Jade, waving hello to the small figures of Rose and John in the orb as he burrowed under the blankets. “Are you on that rug?” he asked when they finished their discussion of possible future trade route improvements. 

“The rug you made for us?” John teased.

“No the purple one,” Dave replied coolly, pushing his shades up on top of his head and smiling at his sister and John in miniature. 

“Of course,” Rose said, then glanced at Jade. “Would you catch him up or must I?”

Jade grimaced and opened her mouth but John interrupted. “Zazzerpan turned her down again so it will still be you coming this way in the spring,” John said bluntly. 

Dave reached out to touch the orb, wishing he could embrace his distant twin. “We will find a way to get you to Prospit sooner or later,” he promised 

Rose tried to smile. “And become so freckled that I am as dark as Jade? No thank you. My predilection for muted purples would not look as well against a different skin tone.”

“Clearly you need to wear brighter things Rose!” Jade said gleefully. “I will be sure to include some new bolts of fabric when we come in the spring so that you will be as fashionably Prospitian as can be when you come!”

Rose held up her hands as though to ward off an attack. “Anything but that!” she cried, smiling at last. “My brother may have gone color blind in his years in your blinding presence but I refuse to be swayed by your extravagant wiles.”

Jade chuckled as she glanced at Dave who was busily cocooning himself in blankets. “No, he has simply learned to dress himself in the best ways,” Jade said cheerfully.

“How sad that my only brother has lost the use of his eyes,” Rose responded. “So tragic and unnecessary. If only he had walked around with a blindfold on more reliably.”

“Hey!” Dave finally interjected. “I look great in these colors you uncouth Derse barbarian!”

“I am slain!” Rose said dramatically, putting her hand to her brow. “Your harsh unfeeling words have cut me to my core and stabbed through my black Dersian heart!”

John put a hand to her chest. “Your heart is still beating, I think,” he declared after long moments.

Rose laughed, swatting his hand away and shaking her head. “Fine, perhaps my dark heart is sturdier than I thought.”

\----------

Rose dozed off not long after and John tucked her into bed before returning to the rug with the orb. “Dave… Does she have another workshop?” he asked quietly, not wanting Rose to overhear. 

“If she did she kept it secret even from me,” Dave replied, grimacing. “Which given that it is Rose is entirely likely. No luck following her?”

“Still none,” John said unhappily. “She knows every nook and cranny of this place and I am too big to slip through some of her favored side passages.”

“As entertaining as it is to revisit this conversation each night,” Jade snapped. “It does not get us any closer to finding the truth.”

“There have been more reports,” John said gloomily. “The commoners whisper of dark monsters who haunt the deep mines and forests and that the homes that are the most isolated are often discovered empty, with the doors hanging open and no sign of the owners.”

“Those stories have always existed in Derse though,” Dave argued as always. “Rumors of dark things that whisper in the night and in the darkest mines. Have you actually seen these supposed abandoned cabins? Have you any proof that the disappearances are not merely the work of bandits or hungry wolves?”

“Wolves do not open doors Dave,” Jade interrupted, rolling her eyes. 

“Still though… She might not be the source of it,” Dave said. He could not keep the fear from his voice however though John and Jade were tactful enough not to mention it. “It could be… There could be another explanation…”

“Her hair is getting whiter,” John said quietly. The other two fell silent as all of them considered the meaning of that. “How can she still be contacting them without her wands?”

“Maybe she kept a hidden set,” Jade said dully. Of the three she had spent the least time with Rose but that also gave her a more stubbornly optimistic outlook to this entire thing.

“Of all of us she is the most likely to keep her secrets even now,” Dave agreed. All three fell silent and John looked over at the pale figure sleeping peacefully. “Please… Please stop her before she does something dangerous John.”

John nodded though he looked very unhappy. “I will do my best but I do not know even where to start… Only Rose and Zazzerpan know enough about his spellbooks to tell me what could be happening and neither of them will talk to me. Well I have not tried talking to Zazzerpan very hard. Just for the suspicion of her power he stole her wands and has continued to hide them jealously even though she no longer argues with him. I refuse to be the cause of her getting… I do not even know… Hurt? Thrown in the dungeons?”

They lapsed into grim silence again. 

“Do your best John,” Jade said at last. “A few more weeks and we will arrive and then we can share this burden between us.”

John nodded gratefully and at last they closed of the connection. John climbed into bed with Rose, wrapping his arms around her and wishing that he could keep her safe from the darkness she refused to admit she was courting. 

\----------

“Winter always brings death and disappearances,” Zazzerpan declared before the court. “But this year the death toll has been especially high.” 

John shifted uncomfortably in his formal seat a few steps down from where the king and queen were seated on their thrones. He shot a glance at Rose but she was as statuesque and immobile as ever on the other side of her mother. Over the years he had grown accustomed to the overly formal high court proceedings where they each had their specific seat and had to comport themselves accordingly as citizens filed in to be heard but that did not mean he had to like the arrangement. Seated in his most restrictive and formal garments he often thought longingly of his parents’ idea of court which resembled a social gathering rather than this highly regimented procedure. 

John had learned to read the formal attire of the Dersites and Zazzerpan’s embroidery heavy robes and excess of softly clanking jewelry boded ill for his intentions. John glanced uneasily at Rose again, all too aware of the dark shadows under her eyes and the way her hair and skin seemed all of one shade. Jade and Dave had gotten underway a few days before when the annual spring flooding had died down enough for the Prospitian roads to be more than a muddy quagmire. Though they spoke constantly, Rose refused all of his attempts to discuss her activities and despite his numerous attempts, he never successfully caught her sneaking away at night. They shared a bed, how could she still be working all night? During the day he stuck to her like a tick but still she faded away. 

He blinked, realizing Zazzerpan glared at him and continued to drone on and realized he had drifted. Suppressing a sigh and the urge to blush like an errant child, John smoothed his sleeves and carefully adjusted one of the rings on his fingers while staring Zazzerpan down until the wizard looked away again. John had learned much of subtle political maneuverings. 

“The rumors, your majesties, surely even you have heard them,” the old wizard was saying, waving his arms emphatically. “They say dark shapes haunt the mines, devouring those who wander too far from their lamps. How many hunters and foresters have we lost this winter alone? Young, healthy workers in the prime of life are vanishing without a trace. Homes on the edge of the forest lie empty and still you tell me this is nothing!”

The king leaned forward and Zazzerpan shut his mouth abruptly. The wizard drew himself up to his full height, straightening his elaborate robes. “I will ask you again as I have asked you each time now,” the king said softly and John practically felt the high walls lean in expectantly in the resultant hush. “Where is your proof?”

“Your majesty wishes proof?” Zazzerpan asked archly, not even his full white beard disguising his wide smile. He shot a malicious look at Rose and gestured to his newest apprentice, who rushed off through the main doors, a young lad of 11. John did not recall his name. 

Rose leaned forward in her chair and John stiffened. She had barely moved, barely breathed through the morning’s long proceedings, not even bothering to fidget. He wished she would look over at him, confident he would know what she thought if she would just meet his eyes. As ever in court she kept strictly to protocol however and her gaze was fixed upon Zazzerpan, despite the slight aura of hostility that now rose from her. John swallowed, his mouth going dry as he looked back at the wizard as well. Zazzerpan and Rose glared daggers at each other. 

The scraping of wood on stone caught John’s attention and the apprentice returned, accompanied by guards, carrying a heavy looking work table into the room. A cloth as heavily embroidered as the wizard’s robes covered whatever lay across it, though based on the way it bounced with the table’s movement, it was something soft. Rose had returned to her statue impression but now the king and queen leaned forward. 

The guards set the table behind the wizard whose glittering eyes were fixed on Rose. “Here,” he declared dramatically, his voice ringing through the audience chamber. He pulled one of the thorns of Oglogoth from his sleeve (John winced as Rose crushed the wood of the chair arms in her rage) and used a breath of magic to whisk away the cloth. 

The assembled citizenry in the upper gallery gasped at the long black… thing stretched out across the table. Thick straps held it in place though it didn’t move, biting into the pitch black flesh. “Foresters managed to hack this off one of these imagined beasts,” he announced. “It tried to drag them from their cabin but one of them had the presence of mind to slam the door shut and the rest went to work with their axes. Whatever it came from fled shrieking but they sent couriers to me and I went myself to investigate. 

John felt his stomach heave at the sight of it. The thing was wrong. It simply could not belong in this world. He looked over at Rose anxiously but she seemed unimpressed by Zazzerpan’s prize, idly picking splinters out of her pale fingers. 

“Can you drive this monster away?” the queen asked. She and the the king had gotten to their feet, staring at the slimy thing on the table. 

“Monsters your majesty,” Zazzerpan grated, smiling in his oily way. “I believe they have been multiplying throughout the winter. You may recall I attempted to warn you several times…”

The king frowned and Zazzerpan quickly suppressed his gloating attitude, standing more respectfully. “Can you, Wizard?” he demanded. 

“I believe so, your majesties,” Zazzerpan demurred, bowing low enough that his beard brushed the stone flags of the floor. “But.. I will need your permission to use some of the texts locked away beneath the castle.”

Rose continued to pick splinters from her fingers as though Zazzerpan described a particularly boring meal he had eaten recently. John glanced from her to the wizard uneasily though Zazzerpan’s attention was all on the king and queen.

“Very well,” the queen said with a grimace. “When you have prepared yourself, come to my solar. Such things are best read in the light of day.”

The king nodded to the herald who announced that the royal family would hear no more petitions today. The nobles and commoners filed out of the hall, glancing back often at the hideous tendril Zazzerpan had brought before them. The wizard himself ordered it carried back to his workshop and, with a last gloating smile thrown at Rose, swept from the room. When the doors closed behind him leaving the royals alone with their most trusted guards, the king and queen sank back onto their thrones. “There is no other option,” the king said soothingly. “We must let him try, for the sake of our subjects.”

The queen opened her mouth to speak but Rose got to her feet, looking up at them coldly. “This is a death sentence for him, you do understand that yes?” she said crisply. John scrambled to his feet as well and moved to stand at her side, lending his silent support to her words as he gazed up at the Dersite rulers who looked stricken. 

“He seems confident enough, daughter,” the queen said at last. 

“He can scarce wield my thorns which were made by a relative novice. Providing him access to those works would be like handing a baby a torch: though it is difficult to say what will catch fire first, you can be sure that something will burn,” Rose snapped. John glanced at her chair and grimaced to see the splintered dents she had left in it. He worried for her hands but this was not the time to fuss.

“Zazzerpan is an ancient, wise wizard,” the king grumbled. “You are a child who has had no practice for a year and is, furthermore, the heir to the throne! Are you proposing we arm you with the most dangerous magics of our kingdom and send you forth to fight monsters?”

“Precisely,” Rose said calmly. 

Her parents stared at her for long moments before the king grimaced and the queen’s expression turned stony. “Zazzerpan is our choice and you will abide by that,” she ordered. “Return to your rooms, both of you. I am putting extra guards on your doors until Zazzerpan is well away. ...I will send the healer to tend you.” The queen said more gently, glancing at Rose’s chair. 

Rose turned on her heel without a word and stalked away from her parents. The guards moved to open the door and escort her and John back to their rooms. 

\----------

“Fools,” she growled, pacing back and forth before the fireplace after the healer had left. The damage had been far less than John had feared but there had still been a number of splinters to pick out and a few scrapes to bandage. The healer had frowned at how pale and wan Rose was but left when ordered to. John sat on the edge of Rose’s bed and watched her pace. “He will die for the sake of all of their pride.. their blindness… This is an enemy made for me!!”

“...Is it?” John asked. Rose paused but did not quite dare to look at him. John scowled and hopped down, advancing on her. “Did you make them for you?” he asked. His ears rang, adrenaline washing through him and leaving his heart pounding. Her words had dropped the final piece into place and her plan was suddenly so terribly clear. 

“You wanted your magic back… access to those spells at long last…” he said aloud, staring at nothing as his mind reeled. 

“John,” Rose said softly, her bandaged hands gripping his shoulders. “John you do not understand.”

“You are correct,” he growled, frowning at her. She lifted her chin defiantly. “People have DIED Rose!”

Guilt came and went on her face and her shoulders drooped. “I never… They took my wands! I brought one over to teach me the spell to make my wands more powerful! I thought… We needed me to be strong. I thought if I could power up the thorns well enough I could raze part of the mountains and all of our troubles would be over… I am more than strong enough to command one of those monsters,” Rose declared, standing straight again. “I was prepared to banish it back to whence it came when Zazzerpan intervened and all of my plans came crashing down. I attempted to explain but he barred me from his workshop and… and without my wands I could not close the doorway on my own.”

John’s bones had turned to water and he swayed. Rose kept him upright and helped him to a chair, touching her cold hands to his forehead worriedly. “You feel hot,” she fretted. 

“You are so cold,” he said softly, catching her hands and holding them to his cheeks. “Why are you so cold Rose?”

“I… I have been trying to close the gate,” she said. “The first one I summoned has been helping me to try and keep the rest that have slipped through contained, but it takes so much energy without my wands to properly channel it and without access to Zazzerpan’s supplies and watched as we are… I did not want you to worry.”

John bit back a despairing laugh and pulled her into his lap, hugging her close. “No wonder you have grown so distant,” he grumbled. “I am so… so angry with you for not sharing this with me… Do you not trust me?”

“I do!” Rose objected, her arms around his shoulders. “Of course I do… But none of the rest of you have any magical strength… Talking with even my controlled monster would corrupt you utterly and if I had told you... “ Rose shook her head and leaned her forehead against his. “You would have insisted on helping and I would have lost you.”

John rolled his eyes. “I could have helped you break into Zazzerpan’s workshop at least,” he admonished. “I could…”

The door flew open and Rose and he jumped to their feet, ready to reprimand whoever had violated their privacy, but they fell silent at the sight of the king and queen. They were white-faced and shaking and, John noted grimly, nearly as pale as their daughter. “Zazzerpan…” the king managed to say.

\----------

John and Rose sprinted through the corridors. John felt as though his mind had detached from his body, drifting along behind him like a cloud though his body still ran down the stairs and hallways with an irritatingly jolting feeling. 

Despite his longer legs, Rose beat him into the solar and gasped. John entered just behind her and halted, staring at the gray statue. 

It was Zazzerpan. 

His face was twisted in a fearful shout, right arm lifted and holding a smooth white orb, but he was all gray stone, rigid, frozen, petrified. John shuddered, staring in horror at the wizard and failed to catch hold of Rose in time. Already she was in the room, gleefully snatching up her thorns of Oglogoth with a sigh of pleasure. 

“At last,” Rose said happily, turning hungry eyes on the orb in Zazzerpan’s hand. “This is what can tell me how we can be rid of all the monsters John! I can save the kingdom from them!”

John stumbled across the threshold. “Wait! It… That thing killed him! Do not touch it!!”

“Fear not,” she said, smiling beautifully. “I know what I am doing. You need not be alarmed!”

John failed not to be alarmed as Rose slipped into the blackdeath trance of the woegothics, quivering in the bloodeldritch throes of the broodfester tongues. 

Rose had gone grimdark.

John could only stare as the darkness spread from the orb in her hands up her arms. The whites of her eyes glowed in faint pulses against the sudden dark of her flesh, her hair starkly white. A smile from black lips utterly failed to reassure him as Rose cradled the orb. 

“I will command them,” she murmured, her voice echoing strangely. Rose looked up slowly as the roof over her head cracked, darker than pitch tendrils punching through the stone and tearing a hole in the room. “Nothing will keep us apart,” Rose declared, beginning to hover as John lunged to catch hold of her. He had moved too late, however, and the black tendrils whipped around her and sucked back up into the mists outside the castle like lightning in reverse. “No!! Rose!!” he cried.

\----------

Jade spurred her horse to greater speeds, Dave thundering along after her. The pass through the mountains was still occasionally dusted with snow and dotted with ice but Jade had no problem navigating around hidden pitfalls and Dave was clever enough to keep hard on her trail. John’s desperate news through their spheres had sent them on this headlong charge, though where they would begin looking for Rose once they were all three together, Jade had no idea. 

Still the idea of John alone made it hard to breathe. They would get to him and then they would find Rose and banish whatever dark monsters thought they could steal her away. 

“Jade… Jade please stop growling,” Dave begged from behind her. 

\----------

The trees whipped around them the next afternoon as the road began to slope downward. They had been forced to slow their progress to avoid killing their horses by exhaustion but Dave itched to keep going. Even when their horses galloped time seemed to drag for them, making far more progress than should have been possible, but Dave scarcely noticed. He felt like a sleeprider. Rose, sister, beloved that he had not been able to touch for two years. Rose his twin had been taken by monsters. 

The wind whipped his hair and he pulled his round helm more snugly onto his head and tightened the strap until it bit into his skin, the slight pain making him feel more grounded. It was another stretch where the were forced to walk the horses. He and Jade barely spoke, saving their strength, though he noticed Jade often glanced at the sun as though in puzzlement. It seemed nailed in the sky directly overhead, determined to burn his freckled skin. 

The horses reared as the forest groaned, wind shrieking past them. Dave kept his seat on his horse but Jade was thrown off, her hair whipping wildly in the sudden blast of wind. Dave threw himself from his horse in a clatter of armor only to find her standing, unharmed. Their mounts fled back the way they had come but Jade squinted into the wind. “...John?” she said.

“That is completely impossible Jade, he is at least two days away still… probably more now that our treacherous horses ran away… With all of our supplies but for my armor and…” he trailed off as John came barreling up the path and flung himself into Jade’s arms. “What?” Dave said, staring blankly at the two as they sank to the ground, hugging so hard that they looked like they were trying to fuse into a single being. “...How?”

\----------

“John! John!!” Jade cried over and over, hardly able to see through her tears. Logic and reason and impossibility were less than nothing to the reality of him in her arms. 

“They took her Jade,” he sobbed into his twin’s shoulder. His body shook and she held him tighter, glancing up at the poleaxed Dave. Jade rolled her eyes in fond exasperation and raised her eyebrows at him. Dave shook himself out of his stupor and clanked to one knee behind John, pulling off a gauntlet and rubbing John’s back. 

“We are getting her back, John. There is no universe in which that does not happen,” Dave said in his accustomed calm tones, though his eyes were wide behind his shades and he still looked completely stunned. “Uhh… so how did you get here so fast?”

John’s sobs slowed and he went limp against her, the wind abruptly dying as John fell into an exhausted slumber. “...What,” Dave said again and Jade could only shrug. Dave sighed with envy as she easily lifted her still-built-like-a-wall brother and carried him over to the shade of some nearby trees that offered some shelter. Dave quickly pulled off his cloak and spread it out. Jade lay John on it then helped Dave to clamber out of his armor. 

“How did he get here so fast?” Dave asked her in an undertone. 

“He came with such a strong wind…” Jade said curiously, glancing around at the completely still trees, the air barely stirring now. “Perhaps he flew.”

\----------

John woke in the morning and struggled upright, disoriented but feeling reenergized. Groans of protest on either side of him brought his attention to the fact that he had not in fact dreamed of finding two of his favorite people on the road. “Jade! Dave!” he cried, flopping back down and hugging them both tightly. 

“I know you Prospits are all morning people but I still like the night,” Dave protested feebly, though his arms felt right, wrapped around John’s tree trunk of a waist. He let his head fall on the muscular shoulder and let John’s presence soothe his fear that he would never see his twin again. 

“Come now Dave, you are getting much better at being a morning person with me,” Jade teased, running her fingers through John’s hair and pressing her cheek to his. They both closed their eyes, savoring the intimacy of skin on skin and the reaffirmation of their bond. Even her terror for Rose could not diminish the savage joy of having her brother in her arms again. 

“Rose,” John said sadly and the other two nodded grimly, all three getting to their feet and tightening boot straps and weapons. Dave had his sword, which he buckled around his waist again after Jade helped him back into his armor. John’s warhammer rested across his back with the ease of long familiarity. Jade’s crossbow was probably halfway back to the caravan by now, still strapped to her horse, but neither of them considered her any less dangerous for all of that. Her aim with any projectile was deadly and there were more than enough stones lying everywhere around them. 

“At least we have a direction,” Dave said when they were situated, pointing toward the nearest peak. John and Jade squinted where he pointed. 

“What do you…” John began, trailing off when he realized that the dark cloud massed above the mountain was WIGGLING. John shuddered and took Dave’s hand, not caring that the metal of the gauntlets was cold against his palm. Dave gently pulled his hand free but pulled John into a careful, clanking hug. 

“We will get her back,” he said fervently, his eyes still on the seething black clouds that were not clouds and the spreading darkness around them that slowly engulfed the afternoon sky. Jade nodded grimly and the trio began their hike up the rocky slope. 

\----------

Dave could not shake the feeling that time had ceased to move for them. They climbed in silence but for labored breathing, moving as fast as they could. His armor clanked, slowing him down as their longer legs carried them farther, but somehow when they pulled ahead he would find the strength to accelerate, keeping pace with the dark haired twins. It had never struck him before how united Jade and John could be. 

Having spent a grand total of three months over his entire life in John’s company and four years in Jade’s, he kept noticing how similar their climbing styles were. (It had occurred to him that he fell behind in part to watch the way their legs moved. The view distracted him from the horrors in the sky above, horrors that had stolen his sister.) Dave focused on moving forward rather than on wondering if Rose still lived. 

He paused, gasping as he shuddered, putting a hand to his chest as panic surged through him. Sight and hearing abandoned him as he suffocated, lungs struggling feebly to pull in air. Surely he would know if his other half was dead. And yet… John had showed them the petrified wizard before he tore out of the castle, giving them short, broken sentences as he rode hard for the pass. All three of them had focused utterly on reuniting before going after the beasts of unimaginable horror and terror who had taken their fourth. 

A sharp pain in his cheek broke through his panic, a second knocked his head back and he came back to himself, grimacing at the pain of his smarting cheeks and staring up dazedly at Jade. She looked furious and frightened as she straddled him, her hand pulled back to slap him again. He tried to think of something comforting to say but as he stared into her familiar green eyes, her dark hair lit from behind with a halo of sunshine that scorched his sensitive eyes (John had his shades safely in hand), the truth came out instead. “What if they have killed her Jade,” he whispered, his hands shaking as he lay on the rocky ground, not caring if his armor was getting dented or scratched. 

“They have not,” she growled fiercely, her raised hand clenching into a fist. “Get up, Dave, we are getting your sister back from them if we have to tear them all tentacle from tentacle.”

Dave swallowed but, with John’s help, managed to get to his feet, clumsily jamming his shades back onto his face. “Sorry, of course we will,” he said to Jade’s back. She was staring up the mountain again. 

“Hey, we worry too,” John said, ruffling Dave’s sweat slicked hair before the knight could pull his helm on again. “But we are making great time up the mountain and we will smash those things and everything will be fine.”

“Yeah…” Dave said, smiling back at John as the other leaned in to do up the chin strap. 

All three froze as a cracking, roaring sound filled the air. Jade, the farthest up the slope, yelped as the rocks abruptly dropped out from under Dave and John, an entire section of mountain plummeting into a sudden void. Jade’s eyes widened as she saw them start to fall, just out of her reach. She reached desperately for them… and her hand closed on John’s wrist and he stood beside her on the still-solid portion of slope, Dave just behind him. 

“What the…” John said in wonder, looking behind him and jumping a little at the realization that they stood on the edge of a sheer cliff that plunged down thousands of feet. “What a view,” he whispered reverently, leaning forward off of it in amazement. 

“You are NOT falling off again,” Jade snapped, dragging him forcibly away from the edge by his arm. Dave had already scrambled back and was sitting on a rock, looking shaken. 

“I was falling,” Dave said, trying to piece it together. “You reached… and then I was standing on solid ground…” He stared at Jade who shrugged. 

“Maybe we just imagined you were both falling,” she said practically. 

John whooped, still staring at the gap where the mountain had vanished. Hundreds of feet wide and thousands of feet deep, an entire section of solid stone was simply… gone. “I can see grass down there!” John cried, only Jade’s death grip on his arm keeping him away from the edge, but he could still lean. “How is there grass there?”

“Something made the mountain vanish,” Dave brooded, looking around at where they sat nervously. “I wonder…” 

He fell silent as a black flash from the far side of the gap drew their eyes. Another thick section of the mountain range began to tremble, sinking slightly before it too vanished. 

Jade and Dave exchanged a look. “Time to climb,” they said in unison. 

\----------

The wind rose around them as they scrambled up the slope. They paused after what felt like hours though their shadows had barely moved. Jade helped Dave to strip off some of his armor. Beneath he was sweating heavily, the breeze unable to cool him in his metal can. 

“Stupid to hike… in full armor,” he panted as Jade carefully stacked it under a tree, neither of them commenting on the fact that the section of disappearing mountain had continued to advance on them. The gap was now nearly a thousand feet across and John kept announcing that he could see a river at the bottom and demanding to know how that could be. 

“Magic,” Dave finally snapped, wiping his hand across his sweaty face. He kept his sword strapped to his hip, grimly determined to be armed. The higher they climbed the better they could see the massive dark shapes that swarmed in the black clouds shot through with odd purple lightning over the peak, drifting overhead. Dave avoided looking at them after Jade had had to shake him out of a trance, hypnotized by their undulating motion. At least the wind that whipped up around them made the horrible monsters flail as though unbalanced, making them cluster together to avoid being blown away. Anything that discomforted them was great in Dave’s book.

He grimaced as a black rain began to fall, the black clouds spreading out over them and cutting off the sun. He would not have imagined before meeting Jade that he could ever have regarded light as preferable to darkness but as soon as the black clouds shut it off he felt a stab of longing for the brightness. 

\----------

They were taking another breather under the shade of a spindly tree that rustled loudly in the high wind when the first of the monsters came after them. A deep croaking gurgle announced its approach as it cast them in greater darkness, howling down on them like a meteorite. John shouted in revulsion as the massive thing swooped down. He whipped his hammer free of its straps and howled in defiance as the wind roared with him. Dave rushed to his side, sword at the ready but certain that they would be crushed by the sheer size of the thing. 

Jade crouched, filling her hands with stones to hurl at the horrorterror’s many eyes when the howling wind whipping around them abruptly only whipped around John, yanking his clothes this way and that as it rushed past him, lifting him into the air before smashing into the beast. It reeled backwards through the air, its many tendrils lashing in confusion as it tried to right itself. 

Jade and Dave stared in amazement as John hit the thing feet first and brought his hammer down on the largest eye. The wind that had borne him up lashed down with his hammer, punching through the center of the beast and leaving a wide hole. It vanished abruptly and John was left hovering almost sheepishly in mid air before he drifted down to the ground between Jade and Dave who gaped at him. 

“Do you think I killed it?” John asked anxiously. 

“Flying,” Dave managed to say. 

“That looked pretty… fatal,” Jade said, ignoring Dave and smiling grimly at her twin. His face hardened. 

“Good,” he replied. 

“Incoming,” Dave snapped, shedding his paralysis and pointing his sword at the massing black cloud of the things as the dozens all began to descend on the trio. The wind scooped John up again and he hovered feet above them, hammer at the ready. 

The crowding monsters slowed their progress, spreading out and blocking the sky as a small dark shape descended. 

“Rose!!” John shouted, soaring up to meet her. He put his hammer away and tried to hug her but she dodged in mid air, frowning at him. 

“Why did you destroy my creature,” she asked, her voice echoing strangely, deeper than normal.

“It attacked us!” John protested. 

“You were in the way,” Rose said. “Return home. I have no desire to harm you but this must be done.” 

Her eyes rolled back as she extended her wands toward the gap in the mountains. A dark light pulsed around her and the horrorterrors abruptly began to hum in unison, their long appendages thrashing in time to the pulse. 

With a crunching, crumbling sound another section of mountain disappeared. The darkness above them grew and the horrorterrors seemed to swell, rumbling low with approval as Rose stared glassily at John again. “Leave.”

\----------

Dave and Jade strained to hear what Rose said as the black rain fell harder, staining their clothing and skin. Soon they would all look like Rose, like shadows of their former selves. 

“Rose!” Dave shouted, trying to be heard about the pounding of the rain and the roar of the wind. “ROSE!!” His twin, his sister floated right there, out of reach, and did not even look at him. She lived she was alive but she was commanding monsters and clearly had no intention of stopping. No intention of listening. “ROSE!!!!!!!!” he screamed, feeling blood vessels break in his eyes with the force of it, his body left trembling and the rain…. The rain had frozen in mid air, hovering as motionless as John above them. “Rose..” he rasped, staring up at her and seeing her reflected even more darkly, refracted upside down in every drop between him and her. 

All of them turned to stare at him, the whites of their eyes gleaming eerily in the deepening darkness.

\----------

Rose lifted her wands, her lips forming words as she stared at Dave through the time-stopped rain. “So you did have magic after all little brother,” she murmured. Each drop she moved through soaked into her, adding to the shadows of her skin, refreshing the inky blackness of her lips. Only her hair remained unaffected, gleaming white and pure. “Not enough magic to stop me.”

Black energy crackled between the tips of her wands, her attention focused on her brother who shook under the pressure of keeping time stopped, freezing the horror terrors and the rain. Jade rested a hand on his shoulder in silent support, staring up at Rose as well. 

Rose hesitated, remembering distantly that she wanted to destroy the mountains in order to be together with them, not to tear them apart. The tips of her wands drooped slightly and John smashed into her like a charging bull.

\----------

Dave gasped as John tackled Rose toward the ground and abruptly the rain began to fall again, pelting them with bitter tasting inky blackness. Jade seized his hand and they both ran toward where John and Rose were plummeting toward the mountain, hitting the ground with a crash. 

Abruptly they stood at the edge of a shallow crater, at the bottom of which Rose stood over a stunned John, grimacing as she pointed her wands at him. “I hate to do this, but I will not be stopped,” Rose said, feeling almost sad in the black horror that had closed in around her. 

“No!” Jade shrieked, reaching, knowing she was nowhere near close enough to grab the wands.

They appeared in her hands. Rose stared, dumbstruck, at her empty hands as John stirred. 

Dave seized the wands and Rose’s head whipped around toward him. “Dave no!!” she cried, but he snapped them in his hands. 

Rose collapsed as though her strings had been cut and John barely managed to catch her before she hit the ground. 

Jade and Dave scrambled down the side of the crater, and a groggy John surrendered Rose’s limp form to Jade and put a hand to his head where a slow trickle of blood dripped from his temple, mingling sickeningly with the black rain. Dave grimaced and helped keep the exhausted John upright as Jade checked Rose for injuries, patting her cheek and trying to wake her. 

Dave glanced up warily as the horror terrors groaned and growled above them, the sky growing darker still. “Not enough to stop them…” Dave said softly as Jade hugged Rose to her as the horrorterrors began to drop toward them. 

“She is ours, not theirs,” Jade snarled, glaring up at the beasts. “Mine.” 

The attacking beasts seemed to flinch away from her. No, Dave realized, they were actually shrinking. They and their dark clouds and their black rain blinked away into nothingness. Dave had to cram his shades back onto his face with shaking hands at the abrupt return of sunlight as he stared at Jade, barely registering that Rose’s eyes had opened and she was doing the same. 

“You have the sun in your hair,” Rose slurred, staring vaguely at the messy mane of backlit black hair. 

“Oh Rose!!” Jade cried, kissing her happily. 

Rose’s cheeks went pink, the grey pulling back abruptly and fading from the rest of her skin as her arms went around Jade. 

“Um,” Dave said. Looking away a little jealously when they ignored them. John leaned against him, staring at the abruptly blue sky. 

“Um. Very good summary,” John agreed, glancing at Dave and grinning. Black rain still dripped down his face, his temple bleeding sluggishly. 

“Here, let me see that,” Dave grumbled, ignoring the sucking sounds coming from behind him as he pulled John’s head closer, trying to find a dry patch of cloth that wasn’t just as dirty as John’s face to bandage the wound with. He was knocked on his back when John lunged at him to kiss him too. “Ow!” Dave cried when his head hit a rock. “Really??”

John grinned and pulled him back up. “We stopped the monsters! That calls for some kissing,” John said practically. 

“Hear hear,” Jade agreed. Rose hid her face against Jade’s shoulder. “What was that sweetheart?” Jade asked. 

Rose lifted her head, tears trickling down her face. “I… I tried to kill you!!” she whispered. 

“Not very hard,” John said with a shrug. “And there were monsters at the time. Monsters that Jade… vanished?”

Jade flashed very white teeth in a fierce grin. “Gone forever,” she snarled. 

“Hm,” Dave said, but he scooted closer to Jade and Rose, putting a hand on his twin’s knee. “You were trying to keep us safe,” he said, smiling when her lower lip quivered. “You just did not expect us to be so much better at it than you.”

Rose shoved his shoulder, the familiar irritation with Dave breaking through her shame. The four of them managed to get to their feet, looking around at the black-rain stained ground. 

“I wonder if that is ok for the plants,” Jade fretted as they began to make their way down the mountain. 

“You should fly us all down the mountain,” Dave argued, swinging John’s hand in his. “I saw you flying.”

“Rose was flying too, why not ask her?” John complained, squeezing Rose’s hand and winking at her when she looked alarmed. 

“We will just have to send someone to keep an eye on these plants,” Jade declared on Rose’s other side. 

\----------

They stood at the sharp edge where the mountain abruptly ended, cut off by the power Rose had borrowed from the monsters. 

“Maybe I could fly us down there,” John said wistfully, leaning out over the edge to stare down the perfectly sheer wall down to the ground.

“No!” the other three shouted, then cringed as a grating sound announced a rockslide as the unnaturally sharp edge began to slide downward under their feet. 

Suddenly they stood on solid ground. Grassy solid ground. Grassy flat solid ground. Jade stared at her hands, then around at the other three. “Umm,” she said, looking sheepishly up at the mountains they were no longer standing on. They watched from a safe distance as the wide rectangular chunk Rose had carved out began to soften as the sides of the mountain slid, creating a more natural looking valley filled with rubble. The dust began to settle as the four looked at each other and wordlessly headed for the Derse castle. 

\----------

The statue of Zazzerpan had been relocated to a memorial garden and the scent of fresh flowers and greens lingered in the hallways as Rose stretched out on her bed beside Jade with a sigh. “I am still surprised how well that worked,” she said aloud, not for the first time. 

“People like heroes and let them do what they want,” John said contentedly, hovering a few inches off the ground as he concentrated. 

“Hardly anyone even complained about us being two sets of twins,” Dave agreed as Jade petted his hair. 

“After they saw what we did to the mountains I think they decided that they would not get on our bad sides,” Jade said smugly, reaching for a pillow with her free hand. It vanished from the head of the bed and appeared over John as Jade grinned. 

“Let him practice,” Dave protested lazily, freezing the pillow in midair as John obliviously tried to drift toward the bed where the other three relaxed. 

“Move a little to your left,” Rose ordered and John obeyed. Her directions had proved uncannily to lead them to where they needed to go. She had gotten them directly in the path of reinforcements who had been more than happy to provide mounts and an escort back to the castle. Once bathed and cleaned up she had taken over the explanation to the King and Queen after demanding a full audience. “We defeated the monsters and banished them back from whence they came and declare the kingdoms of Derse and Prospit united neighbors, now free to travel back and forth as we please. In commemoration of this great event, we, the heirs of Derse do take in lawful marriage, the heirs of Prospit, if they will have us,” Rose declared. 

The crowds had raised so much ruckus that no one but the four heard the full exchange of vows though all watched a confused flurry of kisses between all of them, slowly piecing together that they had all married each other. The uproar was chaos itself but the popularity of both sets of twins (and the new direct pass between the two kingdoms) were too popular to be denied. 

Jade had also chosen that moment to bedeck the halls with flower garlands with a gesture, finally bringing silence to the crowds as the foursome exited the audience chamber. 

They had retreated to their wing to rest and laugh about the stunned looks they had gotten and no one had quite dared to bother them. 

John looked curiously over at Rose, then yelped in surprise and lost his hold on his hovering as Dave let the pillow drop and it bopped John on the head. 

“No fair,” he cried, seizing the pillow and lunging for Dave. The girls laughed and cuddled as the boys chased each other around the room as John tried to windblast projectiles at Dave and Dave froze them in place. Jade snorted and kissed Rose again, gleefully holding her close.

**Author's Note:**

> A treat for Betapalooza 2015! Originally inspired by the prompt: 
> 
> "I absolutely adore sedoretu fic, and the beta kids work into the system very well. You can toss this into whatever pet AU or story idea you nurse close to your heart - if it has sedoretu, I will be happy. If you're an artist, any composition using sedoretu motifs would be much appreciated."
> 
> Whereupon I read the original short story from whence comes Sedoretu and planned this entire thing... and realized about 12k in that in all of my worldbuilding and planning excess and AU setup I had completely failed to fold in much explicit Sedoretu at all and had primarily just provided a poly ship despite all my research. 
> 
> Several headdesks later I realized I had come too far to rebuild the world and decided to wrap up regardless. I WILL MANAGE SEDORETU AT A LATER DATE I AM SO SORRY THIS WENT OFF THE PROMPT SO COMPLETELY. It seemed so easy when I was setting out. But I am older now, and wiser than I was (like two weeks ago). 
> 
> Unrelated to any of that but I am so pleased to have tucked Zazzerpan into a piece. Victory is mine.


End file.
